


Sleepless

by Clementive



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abstract, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Military, British Military, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Gaara (Naruto)-centric, Historical Inaccuracy, Irish!Gaara, Light Angst, Low Fantasy, Magic Realism, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-World War II, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-18 05:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21856006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementive/pseuds/Clementive
Summary: Since Captain Gaara Sabaku was informed of the armistice, he dreams of a faceless woman with pink hair wishing him good morning.
Relationships: Gaara/Haruno Sakura
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aelibia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelibia/gifts).



> This is for Naty, queen of memes, and crack pairings, which is why we get along so well. Enjoy! :D
> 
> Gaara is Irish here because I can.

On board the train to Dunkirk, Captain Gaara Sabaku smelled flowers and moist soil.

_It was happening again._

Sleep sank into him, icy claws, murky heavy thoughts spinning. ' _Not again, not again_ ,' Gaara thought wildly, his mind barely his own now. He gritted his teeth, trying to resist, pull himself out of the visceral grip, but something, someone inhabited him and dragged him out of his world.

Sweat gathered on his upper lip.

He blinked.

The train was gone.

Its jerky movements, the rush of the wind, the night splitting the horizon... Everything was gone. The smell of his men tossed in wide compartments, the sound of their laughter as they played cards and smoked... Everyone was gone.

His legs wobbled. His hand fell for the wall.

It brushed against nothing.

Another step.

The world tilted, flickering, fading to black, grainy, then back to the crooked naked trees spilling across the windows in jets of ink. His lids grew heavy.

Gaara grunted, half-caught in a dream.

A buzzing exploded in his ears, louder than shell projectiles, louder than him retching, death in his throat, choking him. His hand frantically held on to the wall, a foot scrapping forward, looking for the door of his compartment.

Gaara crashed on the floor inside.

He made no echo.

He drifted away, drowning and dreaming.

* * *

Gaara woke up with a start, his surroundings buzzing in streaks of grey.

The room was familiar, always the same; flaked with dust, bright blurry paintings, their colours caught in sunlight, worn by it. White and shrunk black. Everything else was in white and black and if they bled on each other, muddled, overlapping.

Gaara felt for his gun, but his military uniform was gone.

In this frozen dream, in this other world away from the war, he wore suspenders and white shirts. Civilian clothes. Black and white. He smelled like dirt and earth, soil trapped in his skin and under his nails.

' _This isn't real_ ,' Gaara thought, shifting carefully in the bed.

Where was his sleeplessness over gunpowder, whistling bombs and severed limbs gone to?

Where were his nightmares that kept him awake, safe, a hand on his gun, his thoughts away from the front?

Was this all the cost of the war ending?

The bed screeched dully as Gaara slowly stood up.

He needed to leave. _Now_.

Gaara noticed new details every time he came back; a rose froze in time, a new painting, an echo of laughter, a new light, curtains dancing in light and still wind.

He opened the door of his room and faced a long hallway that led to an old wooden stair-case. Other doors along the hallway were marked by numbers. The locked marked rooms made him uneasy as he walked by them.

Tentatively, Gaara went downstairs, his bare feet never feeling the roughness of the wood. He looked around him, his hand stiffening around the banister. It wobbled in his grip, intangible.

"Good morning! Breakfast is ready!"

A woman turned, backlit, faceless, and everything burst in black.

* * *

"Captain?"

His head throbbed with the knocks increasing on the door of his compartment. Gaara blinked slowly in the darkness, the vibrations of the train against his cheek.

Gaara heavily rolled his back, grunting, blinking.

His heart hammered against his rib cage. He felt his sweat drenched uniform.

He was back. Finally.

"Captain?" a voice asked again louder and the pounding increased.

"What?" Gaara croaked.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing.

"What?" Gaara repeated louder.

"We're almost there, sir..."

There. The end of the war. Back home. They were going back home. Tomorrow, they would ship off from Dunkirk and returned to England, then North to Ireland. _Then, then, what?_

_N_ _othing._

"Hn."

Nausea rose, pungent, merciless and Gaara flipped on all-fours, silently retching.

He curled his hands, still dry-heaving, still reeling with drenching sweat and crushing fatigue. Shakily, Gaara wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He then reached for his gun, its weight familiar and reassuring.

He pushed himself up, a hand on the wall, unstable.

The train whistled, then slowed.

His body grew firmer.

Gaara's cold hand gripped the door handle and slid open the door of his compartment. Lieutenant Naruto Uzumaki startled. He watched him with widened blue eyes, gaping. He saluted too late, his movements rushed, his cheeks flushed.

Gaara squinted at the dull light in the hallway.

"You look like you've seen a ghost..." Naruto said quickly and bit his lips. He moved to scratch the back of his neck, but caught himself and saluted again. "Sir, I meant no disrespect."

"Hn. How far are we from Dunkirk?"

"10 minutes away, Captain," Naruto watched him carefully, then avoided his gaze, turning his head toward the horizon.

Indistinctly, the sea filled the horizon behind the scorched trees and dead soil.

"Good," Gaara said quietly. "Tell the men to gather their things."

"Sir!"

Naruto saluted and hurried down the hallway yelling orders to the men.

Gaara let the door slid back shut.

He looked back at his undisturbed bunk, his eyes slowly adjusting back to the darkness.

His head throbbing, Gaara striped. He buttoned up a fresh undershirt shirt and uniform, his dog tags burning against his chest. He readjusted his cuff links, the insignia of his rank. He raised his head and caught his reflection in the window.

The figure of the woman hovered around him, her words still echoing inside him. _Good morning, good morning._ When he blinked again, she was gone, her shadows snatched and replaced by the crooked, fleeting ones of thick trees.

He briefly closed his eyes, then found his gaze again in his reflection.

He was dreamless, sleepless, and alone.

Like he was supposed to be.

His fingers wrapped themselves around his holster.

Good soldiers didn't dream of peace and love.

Good soldiers knew their place, on the battlefield, in the ranks, as vultures, as monsters.

As hopeless, rotten humans who didn't want to go set their guns down and go home.

* * *

At the evening banquet, in Dunkirk, Gaara started falling asleep when the admiral said the word victory. Deeper and deeper, in sticky sleep, he sank when the word "armistice" was shouted, and men whistled and clapped.

Admiral Baki was bent over the microphone, one of his eyes covered by a black patch, the other one ablaze. His mouth stretched, his words, rippling, soundless.

Gaara gritted his teeth, his head swaying. A woman's laughter crawled up his skin, twinkling the shell of his ear. His movements became sluggish as he tried to stand discreetly and head to the door.

Someone cleared his throat to his left. Naruto widened his eyes at him, curiosity and surprise rounding his mouth.

Gaara briefly snapped back to reality. Admiral Baki's patriotic speech pounded back as echoes in the gigantic room. His ears buzzed.

They had burned the flags of the enemy yesterday. Some men had taken them as trophies.

Gaara couldn't see his hand anymore when he reached the door.

He blindly exit.

He heard steps.

He smelled flowers and soil.

_Good morning, good morning._

"Shit," Gaara swore through his teeth.

He slid down the wall, outside the room, panting, his fingers digging into his scalp as he held his head.

* * *

Gaara woke up in the same bed, in the same room, naked without his dog tags and his gun and his uniform. He hurried down the stairs, torn between the desire to see her again and destroy her.

' _This isn't me! I'm a soldier!_ '

The woman turned, faceless, but Gaara caught a flash of pink.

_"_ _Good morning!_ _Breakfast is ready!_ _"_

_NO!_

* * *

Gaara woke abruptly, panting, his skin waxy and uncomfortable, his butt numb on the granite floor of the Mayor's manor.

Gaara ran a shaky hand on his face.

He was back, but it didn't bring the usual reassurance.

Holding his hand in front of him, Gaara clenched it carefully, each finger, then the fist. He felt for his bones, flesh, tendons, and articulation, his thundering heart possessing him. He was alive.

He was still here.

Stiffly, Gaara brushed by guns and dog tags and rank insignia and cuff links. Again and again. Until she was gone.

_Good morning, good morning._

Was the scent of soil, her or freshly dug off graves?

_Good morning, good morning._

_Good. Good. Good._

Gaara tilted his head up, his breathing steadying.

Was there truly any ounce of good left in him?

* * *

Later in the evening, Gaara faced the sea, rubbing the tattoo on his forehead. How could his skin marked with love when he had torched a country to the ground? His fingers still curled, ready to pull the trigger. He killed and killed, and he had received medals for it.

Stiffly, Gaara unclasped the collar of his ceremony military uniform, his hat next to him, half-buried in sand.

He faced home, sitting in the sand. His men kept discussing what they were going to do after. They kept showing pictures of loved ones, pointing and naming them. _This is whom I'm going back to_.

" _What are you going to do after,_ _sir_ _?_ " they asked him, and Gaara didn't know what to answer.

He had no pictures in his breast pocket.

He had nothing, but his uniform and his dog tags.

He had found his way in the military.

His fingers stilled over his tattoo, rigid and cold.

With their soft rhythm, the waves drained the colours of the world.

Gaara fell asleep, sinking in sand and the rustles of the sea.

* * *

He woke up, his arms flailing as if drowning.

There was another body on top of him, softly grunting. He panted, instantly thinking of corpses even if the body was warm. His hands gripped a supple shoulder.

Around the bed, the walls dripped.

She turned her head toward his, a pinch of colours.

" _Good morning, honey._ "

He couldn't breathe.

He slipped back, claimed by the waves of Dunkirk's beach.

* * *

Gaara jolted up on the beach, sand clinging to him and the waves licking the sole of his boots.

Naruto smirked above him, his blond hair alit in the rising sun.

"Rough night, Captain?"

Gaara grunted and pushed himself up on wooden limbs. Naruto handed him his hat after dusting the sand off it.

"The ship's here. Time to go home, sir."

Gaara nodded roughly, passing a hand through his disheveled hair. Sand flaked on his shoulders.

Next to him, Naruto whistled an old Irish tune, but all he could hear was her "Good morning" carried by the sea. Home.

* * *

Home was to rebuild, like everything else.

Home was temporary, an inn on a hill overlooking the village.

The inn had a ridiculous name, ' _Blossom Castle_ '.

Gaara scowled, his hand stiffening around the strap of his duffle bag, as he turned on himself inspecting the colourful paintings and bright furniture. The original structure of the castle, its thick walls and uneven bricks, was intact, but everything was too bright.

The innkeeper watched him with a polite smile, her finger tapping a sign. 'No weapons.' She gleamed the brightest, her green eyes sparkling, her short pink hair curling behind her ears.

Gaara let his bag drop to the floor and crossed his arms over his chest, his pale eyes narrowed into slit.

"One room, please."

"No guns," she articulated, her slim eyebrows furrowed.

Gaara grimaced at the sign.

"Ma'am..."

"The war is over," she said and roughly opened her registry book as if she knew he would stay. "If you want a room, no guns."

They glared at each other. Her pen indented the paper, ink spreading around its tip.

"So what will it be?" she challenged him, her voice clipped.

"I returned my gun," Gaara said through his teeth.

Her face softened.

He crashed.

* * *

Through his closed eyelids, Gaara saw yellow and orange.

The paintings were yellow and orange, bleeding light.

Gaara stirred, rolling on his side. Her warm breath tickled his arm. He shifted his head to look at her, her face covered in her pink locks. Hesitantly, he reached to brush her hair aside.

"Go back to sleep," Sakura moaned and kissed the tip of his fingers.

Gaara tensed, withdrawing his hand. He licked his dry lips, his eyes drifting down to her enlarged stomach.

"Sakura..."

He stopped.

He couldn't say: "Sometimes, you disappear in my dreams, and I'm scared the war is still going on." He couldn't say: "I still look for my gun."

He never said: "I'm terrified." She already knew.

"The baby is fine," she whispered against his skin, her hand moving up and down his arm. "The inn is fine... Just sleep. Or at least, let me sleep."

Instead of moving away from him, she shifted and pulled at the bed sheets until she rested her head on his chest. She kissed his neck.

His arms closed around her, careful as not to crush her pregnant belly against him.

"I think I should fix the roof," Gaara murmured. "It's still leaking in room 4, isn't it?"

Sakura groaned.

"The fence, too... That farmer's goats, they keep destroying the vegetable patch."

Sakura cupped his cheek.

"Gaara... just sleep."

"Okay... Later..."

"Yes, later."

Gaara finally closed his eyes, his head full of bright colours and the scent of flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please take the time to tell me what you thought if you can. :)


End file.
